


Best Laid Plans

by beltsquid



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 10:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21474586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beltsquid/pseuds/beltsquid
Summary: Sometimes a date can be getting ambushed by the mercenary you're hunting and fleeing into a hidden underground bunker.
Relationships: Andal Brask/Cayde-6
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	Best Laid Plans

**1036 Ganymed, Some Time Ago**

Their eyes meet across a dusty asteroid and two things are apparent. One: they’ve been fed the exact same intel. Two:

“It’s a trap!” they’re echoing in each other’s comms as an unreasonable number of shanks laden with explosives transmat into the crater they’ve found themselves in. It’s a kill box. Cayde, ever the quickdraw, is already firing. One exploding shank turns into every shank exploding and Andal barely makes it to the ridge without dying. Cayde’s still across the way. He’s lost an arm, and Taniks’ crew has started to fill out the field behind them. There’s shrapnel lodged in Andal’s thigh and he doesn’t know how long he can retain consciousness before passing out.

Regardless, he hefts his rifle and takes aim. With a squeeze of the trigger, two dregs lose their heads. Ether hangs in small clouds above where their bodies fall. It buys enough time for Sundance to regen Cayde’s arm and he’s already laying down cover fire as Andal’s vision fades.

He comes to in a flash of Light and he doesn’t even try to make sense of his surroundings, he just keeps pace at Cayde’s side as they clamber over the desolate rock that Taniks has lured them to, the untranslated hissing of Eliksni dominating their audio feeds. Their Ghosts remote pilot their ships in overhead, tantalizingly close enough to transmat into.

“Andal! On your left!”

The warning comes a fraction of a second before he feels the heat of a scorch cannon blast near his feet. Rocky debris flowers from the crater it creates and digs into the unarmored back of his boot. He turns his head just enough to finally get a look at Taniks and feels genuine fear to actually understand the size of the beast. Even though Cayde and Shiro told him that he was “big,” he still thought a mercenary would be the size of a Captain. Taniks could go arm to arm to arm to arm with a Kell or Archon. He throws a grenade behind him and prays to Light that it’s enough to buy them time to transmat into their ships. Little sound comes of the ensuing explosion with the atmosphere as thin as it is, but the break in scorch volleys is all the signal their Ghosts need to get them out of there.

“That coulda gone better,” Cayde radios him after they’ve put a bit of the black between them and Ganymed.

“And it coulda gone a lot worse. If anything he let us off easy. Probably means he’s tracking us,” Andal says. He keeps checking his radar for the telltale signatures of a cloaked ketch that he knows has to be lurking nearby.

“Good. That means I get to pick the venue for our next dance,” Cayde quips over the radio. Andal shakes his head.

“What if he follows me instead? I’m better looking.”

“We both know that’s not true. And? I’ve already gotten away from him before. That’s gotta stick in his craw. He’ll come for me.” 

Andal bites the corner of his lip and thinks it over. It’s sound enough reasoning—if that monster operates on spite. He’s not so sure, though. At the end of the day, a bounty’s a bounty. Were he Taniks, he’d pick off the one least familiar with his tactics first. If he splits to lay his own trap, it’s fifty-fifty odds. If he sticks with Cayde, forcing the confrontation is all but a sure thing, and the Dare will come down to who has the best shot.

He likes those odds.

They go full burn all the way to Mars and touch down in Eos Chasma. It’s a close thing with the Cabal anti-aircraft fire coming in too close for comfort and their ships are going to need new paint jobs, but they make it to red soil nonetheless.

“Pinned in a canyon’s an awful good way to get dead,” Andal says, gesturing around them. 

“That’s the plan, bud,” Cayde replies. Andal looks to the sky. The Cabal are still firing. It’s the kind of ordinance that could even give a ketch trouble, should Taniks choose to bring it down so close to the surface. If that’s Cayde’s plan, well, it’s a neat idea but he’s not sure Taniks is that foolhardy. Another volley of cannon fire erupts from the Cabal base perched above them, and distant explosions pepper the far side of the canyon. When the cannons go quiet, he makes sure to lay his sniper’s nest just beyond the fresh pockmarks they’ve laid into the Martian soil. Cayde scales the cliff face and rests on a perch in the rock. It’s clear that he’s scouted this place out long in advance, that this was one of many contingencies he’s had laid out. Andal grins with pride as he bends the Arc Light around him to cloak his presence. With a little more forethought, Cayde’s plan would be as good as one of his own. He’ll make a fine addition to the Vanguard.

They wait.

They wait for hours. The sun is sitting low and blue on the horizon, and there’s been no sign of Taniks or his crew. The Cabal have deployed a patrol of Sand Eaters into the canyon and Andal has to weigh whether or not to spend precious ammo on popping rhino heads or saving it for Taniks and praying the Cabal pass him by. 

“Hey Cayde?” He whispers into comms.

“Yeah bud?”

“By now I’m pretty sure he’s using your ‘let the Cabal soften them up first’ plan on us.”

“Yeah. I noticed that.”

One of the smaller creatures that tag along with the Cabal turns its head toward Andal’s position. The running theory among the Warlocks is that they’re psychic. If that’s true, his cover is already blown. With a long, steady breath he lays his scope on its head and fires.

The Cabal react quickly to the sound of gunfire, hefting their thick shields in the direction of his position and laying down a continuous spray of slug rifle fire. Andal does what he can, sniping at their exposed hands and feet, but he’s going through ammo at twice the pace. His Ghost materializes near his ear.

“I’ve been monitoring the Cabal comm chatter. They’ve deployed a tank. We need to get out of here now,” she says. Andal swears, looks up and down the canyon, and sure enough catches the glint of a Goliath cannon coming up from the East.

“Cayde? Buddy? They’re bringing in a tank now, so if you’ve got an exit strategy now would be a great time to hear about it.”

A loud crack echoes from the other side of the canyon. The head of one of the remaining Phalanxes explodes as though it were a bomb, tearing through its cohorts.

“When were you gonna tell me you have an Icebreaker?!” Andal yells incredulously into his comm. Here he was chewing through sniper ammo while Cayde sat pretty with a banned prototype weapon that manufactures its own ammunition while you wait. Cayde had gone on forever about how he wanted one of those things, how Andal was going to give him the inside scoop on where to steal one once he was in the Vanguard.

“Uh, when I killed Taniks with it? Now get your ass over here, I’ve got a plan,” he says.

Pinned on one side of a canyon is as bad as pinned on the other side of a canyon. But even if he’s the kind of bastard that would, say, bet on him wasting ammo on an enemy patrol so he could all but guarantee a kill shot on their quarry, Cayde won’t let him die. Reckless, yes. Selfish? Perhaps more than a little. Since he met him, it’s been nothing but close calls and risky shots and he hasn’t regretted a second of it. He makes a break for it. Cannon fire arcs heavy above him; even though the tank is still some distance away, the Cabal aren’t the type to wait for a firing solution before making a show of their firepower.

Cayde’s kicking at the dirt when he makes it to the other side.

“Help me with this,” he says, and bends down. 

Andal reaches down to the dirt and finds something solid, heavy, and metal beneath the red dust. 

“A door?”

“Just pull!” Cayde grunts. Cannon fire shatters the rock beside them, and it falls beside them like angry, sharp rain. Another comes and destroys his sparrow. Andal puts everything he has into opening the door, and then some. It finally gives and creaks painfully on ancient, oxidized hinges.

“Go go go,” Cayde says, slapping his backside. “I’ll close it up after you.”

Andal jumps in. It’s a long fall through pitch black and nothing else. He calls the Light to break his fall, but without knowing where the ground is, it’s a random guess at best. He lands heavy on his feet, shattering one ankle, and he swears a blue streak while his Ghost heals him. A pinprick of light sinks through the air above them. One, then two, telltale shimmers of a double-jump flicker in his vision, and Cayde lands beside him.

“No time to warn you about the drop,” he apologizes.

“It’s better than eating tank fire,” Andal sighs, and leans into Cayde’s shoulder. It’s been a helluva day, and he’s starting to feel tired. Cayde slings an arm around his waist, and their Ghosts float above them, casting searching beams of light around the cavern they’ve found themselves in. Tall angular pillars stand at regular intervals like an old, dead orchard.

“What is this, a Golden Age cistern?” Andal asks. The canyon had to be cut by something. In the Golden Age, perhaps the whole thing was filled with water. There are still green, wet oases in certain pockets of the planet. Maybe it was all like that, once.

“Maybe, but it’s more than that. I’ll show you,” Cayde says, squeezing his waist before letting go. He leads them to a diamond-shaped door and lets Sundance loose at the control panel, where she begins to work at it with her Light.

“It’s a Bray facility,” Andal realizes.

“And this is just the back door,” Cayde says. He can hear the grin in his voice.

“Where’s the front?”

“Other side of the Cabal base upstairs.” 

“You are just fulla surprises today,” Andal says, and the lingering resentment about the Icebreaker fades. Sundance does a twirl on her axis, and the Bray doors part as smoothly as they must have the day they were installed. 

“After you,” Cayde gestures at the open entrace with a flourish. Andal sidles in. It’s tight quarters; clearly this was some kind of tunnel meant only for maintenance of whatever the machinery around them is. The seals on the facility have done their job; all the tech looks practically untouched. He wonders what it would do if they were to find a way to power the place up. 

“You know it’s also surprising you even needed your Ghost to pop the door open,” he says. “I thought you Exos had a free pass on Braytech.”

“Works on Titan,” Cayde sulks. It’s true; he’s seen doorways in the old arcologies welcome his presence without a blip of resistance. It would be eerie if it weren’t also incredibly convenient.

“Maybe it’s because you’re Titan’s Warmind. This just isn’t your planet,” Andal offers.

“Don’t you start that Warmind business again!”

Andal laughs. The passage opens up into an ordinary-looking hallway and Andal stands aside to let Cayde take point, as he can only assume that he already knows the layout. They pass the disarticulated skeletons of a couple of long-dead Bray employees and Cayde snaps his fingers.

“That’s right, first door to the right of the skeletons,” he says to himself, and they file into a room where a flourescent light fixture dangles ominously from the ceiling. Cheaply manufactured plasteel cabinets line the walls. Cayde reaches into one, grabs something and throws it in Andal’s direction. He catches it. Plastic crinkles in his fist, and he can feel soft lumps inside. His Ghost swings around to give him a light and a better look at whatever it is that Cayde has just given him. The green logo of the wrapper is immediately familiar.

“Concordat branded vitamin gummies?” Andal asks. He must have picked these up from a recruitment rally.

“Why not?” Cayde shrugs.

“Never figured you for a Concordat guy.”

“I’m not. I just like the lime flavor.” Cayde reaches in and grabs another bag from his stash, opens it, and begins to snack.

Andal follows suit, although he finds the flavoring overpowering. Maybe it’s different for Exos. Or maybe he just doesn’t like artificial lime. It doesn’t matter, though, what’s important is getting something in him. He hasn’t eaten in something like eighteen hours.

“How long does it take to walk the facility?” Andal asks.

“Couple hours. It’s a big place. Lotsa stairs, automated turrets, sealed chambers, hazardous materials, you know how it is.”

“Right.” Andal nods. Now that they’ve slowed down, the day is rapidly catching up to him. He wants to make it out to a safehouse before resuming the hunt, but it looks like that won’t happen for a while yet.

“We can make camp in the server room,” Cayde offers, as if he can read his mind. 

“Did you forget about the murderer that’s stalking us?”

“C’mon, that maintenance shaft is a tight squeeze even for dregs. He’s not getting in here unless he tears a hole in the planet. And I’m sure the Cabal would like a few words with him before he does that. And then? Well we’ll have plenty of warning, won’t we?”

In this scenario, the entire facility is likely to collapse on top of them and instantly send them to their final deaths, but he’s just tired enough to take the gamble.

“Since all this is your idea, you’re taking first watch,” Andal insists. Cayde doesn’t object. They stock up on the remainder of Cayde’s snack stash and work their way back out into the hall, up a flight of stairs, and into a large room that’s lined with rows of ancient data centers.

“Over here,” Cayde says, and leads him to a gap between the wall and one of the rows. The beam of his Ghost’s light reveals a bedroll already laid out.

“So, you come here often?” Andal wonders how many of these old facilities Cayde has made a home for himself in over the years. 

“Not as much as I’d like. Cabal are lousy neighbors,” he says.

Andal leans his sniper rifle against the wall and crawls onto the bedroll. Behind him, Cayde is setting up trip mines with glee. He throws one up to the ceiling and pumps his fist emphatically when it sticks. Andal grins and closes his eyes. It almost doesn’t feel like they’ve spent their day being chased and outplayed by a monster who killed their friends. It would have been nice if they could have come through here under different circumstances.

Sleep takes him, and in his dreams that follow, he watches Cayde die. Taniks bashes his skull in, uses metal limbs to peel away metal limbs and leaves him a broken piece of machinery to be scavenged by things with two many arms and too many eyes and too many teeth. They come from the walls and burrow up from the ground and his gun won’t fire and the Light won’t come to him. He hasn’t had this dream every sleep since Taniks took the lives of Nian Ruo and Lush’s Ghost but it has been more than a few. Sometimes Shiro dies in the dream as well, but it’s Cayde’s death he sees with perfect, sickening clarity.

He wakes soundlessly with his heart racing in his chest. Cayde’s singing while he sharpens one of his knives. It’s not any particular melody, just something he improvises as he works. It’s not very good—Cayde can’t carry a tune—but there’s little that Andal would rather be listening to right now. His Ghost turns to look at him.

“Thought you were asleep,” Cayde says.

“I was. Bad dream.”

Cayde chuckles. “Don’t you worry, I won’t let the boogeyman get you in your sleep.”

“Funny, it was about the boogeyman getting you.”

“Not gonna happen, alright? I’m not goin’ anywhere,” Cayde says, sheathing the knife. “And I’m gonna win this bet.”

_Or you’ll die trying_, Andal thinks. Every encounter today has been a near thing, and while that’s nothing new for the either of them, it feels real in a way it hasn’t before. Somewhere back on Earth, Shiro is trying to comfort Lush, who is lightless and without a Ghost. If there were someone in the Tower keeping tabs on all those rumors about the renegade Fallen merc, would they have at least been on the lookout before he struck? Cayde thinks this Vanguard business is a great way to get a drop on the hottest caches in the system—and it is—but what he won’t tell him is that he can’t stop thinking that if there was a Hunter up there with the brass, well, they could have gotten to know Nian and Lush would still be a Guardian. It would be nice if it was still Lulah, but she’s long gone.

He sits up from the bedroll and crosses the short distance between them on his knees. Without waiting for Cayde to react, he reaches up and pulls himself to Cayde’s face by his shoulders, and kisses him. It’s been a minute since he last did that, doesn’t know when he’ll get to again. No matter how things shake out, things won’t be like they are right now. When he or Cayde has to sit in a Tower to oversee every other Hunter getting into dumb scraps like this, they won’t have time to explore dead Bray facilities together anymore. He’s not sure Cayde has figured that out yet, and if he hasn’t, he’ll let him think that a while longer. Assuming, of course, that they don’t die today.

“For luck,” he says, and sinks back onto the floor. 

“Luck huh? I’m gonna have to lay a whole lotta that on you if you wanna have a hope in the world of beatin’ me,” he says, and reaches back for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt “My Nightmares Are Usually About Losing You”, sent to me by [Pohutukaryl](https://pohutukaryl.tumblr.com)/[Kahika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahika/pseuds/Kahika) and it got away from me a little.


End file.
